


sweet like honey, burnt like sugar

by DragonEyez



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Baking, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Idiots in Love, M/M, No Spoilers, Season: Spring in Hieron, some point during the 10 years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 07:10:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20524007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonEyez/pseuds/DragonEyez
Summary: ephrim and throndir want to celebrate by baking cookies, unfortunately, neither of them actually know how to do that





	sweet like honey, burnt like sugar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angstandcaffeine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angstandcaffeine/gifts).

> for susie who asked me for this forever ago 
> 
> if you want the recipe to actually make these (and they sounded delicious), i found it [here](https://losangelesovenworks.com/walnut-black-pepper-cookies-wood-fired-oven/)

The hardest part of the whole affair was convincing Emmanuel to let them commandeer his kitchen. It wasn’t necessarily _his_ kitchen, he was far from any sort head chef or someone who could make those kinds of decisions, but Emmanuel was in there so often and took care of things so meticulously that it would’ve felt almost _wrong_ to try and bake without his blessing. Throndir privately thought that the ingredients might rebel against them. Ephrim didn’t want to play the lord card either, so it was a relief that, eventually he just sighed and nodded his head after fifteen minutes of near-begging.

“Just- just please do not make too big of a mess. And be _judicious_ in your measurements. There is only so much of our more extravagant ingredients and I’m sure we’ll want them on more than this one occasion.”

“Look Emmanuel. I promise it’ll be fine. We promise not to burn the down the kitchen or anything like that.” Throndir was doing his best to be reassuring but Emmanuel’s face grew more alarmed at the mere suggestion that a fire even appear. Ephrim quickly swept in and wrap an arm around Throndir’s shoulders.

“It’s okay, Emmanuel. Trust me, it’s just an hour, we’ll be in and out in no time.” He squeezed the arm he had thrown around Throndir’s shoulder briefly to warn him against talking and flashed Emmanuel a winning smile. 

“I..suppose.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ve got a recipe if you’d like it as well. It’s an old one, from Nacre. Would you like it?”

“We’d love that Emmanuel. If you wouldn’t mind.”

It took another bit of mother henning before they managed to gently push the frazzled baker out of the kitchen, but they found themselves sitting alone in the kitchen, recipe card in hand, examining the contents of the shelves. 

“So,” Throndir hiked a thumb at the wood pile. “You wanna get the oven going and I’ll try and get all this together?”

“Uhhhhhh.” Ephrim unconsciously hid his gloved his under his cloak. “Why don’t _you_ do the fire and I’ll pull together the ingredients and the utensils.”

Throndir pecked him on the cheek. “Alright, sounds good. You’ll probably be able to find where they hid the honey. I’m pretty sure they hide it from me specifically.”

Ephrim cocked his head to the side, questioning expression on his face. “Wh-” he started, and then decided against it. He knew better than to ask questions he didn’t want to know the answers to. It was short work for him to track down where everything was located (or hidden) and he only dropped one egg, so really he was counting it as a win. 

“They keep it on the tall shelves.” He called over his shoulder, elbow deep in the cabinet where all the mixing bowls were stacked haphazardly.

“What’s on the tall shelves?”

“The honey. Because they know you’re too short to reach it.”

“Hey!” Throndir playfully shoved him, catching him easily before Ephrim could overbalance and fall in his surprise. “I’m not that short. You’re barely even taller than me.” 

“Tall enough to find it though. You get the stove going?”

“Yessir.”

“Okay good. So since you have two hands, you get to mix everything, and I’ll read you the recipe.”

“Translation: Throndir does all the work while Ephrim sits there looking pretty.”

“No! I got the stuff out for you!”

“I’m just teasing babe. It’s okay, what’s the first thing to do?”

“Uhhhhh, goooooood questiooooon…” Ephrim squinted at the card, reading the cramped instructions. “‘Cream the butter and sugar together.’”

They both looked at each other and then at the ingredients on the counter and back to each other. The sudden realization that there had been a grave miscalculation dawned on them. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know? Mix it, I guess.” Ephrim hoisted himself on the counter, sitting so he could watch what was happening. “Mix it really good. There’s no cream in the recipe so I’m going to go with that.”

“Alrighty then. Maybe we _should_ have asked Emmanuel to stay.” Throndir laughed softly.  
“It’s fine. It’ll be fine!” Ephrim protested. “How hard can it really be?”

Famous last words, he supposed.

The trouble came when Throndir went to add in the pepper and accidentally...sniffed some. He barely managed to turn in time to avoid sneezing into everything, but he did. The noise startled Ephrim, who hadn’t been expecting _that_, and he hit the measuring cup of flour, hitting Throndir square in the chest with it. A beat skipped as Throndir realized what exactly had happened to him. The look of open-faced shock and bewilderment sent Ephrim into a laughing fit.

“It’s not funny!” 

“You look like a _ghost_!” Ephrim howled.

“And whose fault is that?”

“Gods I wish you could see yourself!”

“Oh yeah?” Oh no, that was a dangerous tone, but he reacted too late. Throndir scooped up some of the flour off the counter and threw it at Ephrim, laughing as it settled all over his head and shoulders like a fine snow. “Now we’re even.”

“I could have you beheaded for that.”

“I’d like to see you try. ‘Hello yes Corsica? Please kill my boyfriend, he got flour on me.’”

“At least mine was an accident!”

Throndir’s shit-eating grin was still adorable, even obscured by ungodly amounts of baking material. “Mine was too. I accidentally threw flour at you.”

Ephrim would like to say he was a mature adult about the whole thing from the beginning at decided to just move past it. That’s what he would tell anyone if they ever asked. In reality, it took some moments of careful contemplation and soul-searching before he rolled his eyes and leaned over for a kiss. “Were it not for the fact that I have a reputation to maintain-” he murmured before Throndir’s lips met his own. “-I would end your existence right here and now in the most violent food fight ever seen on the continent.”

“I think it's cute that you think you would win.”

Laughing, the two of them cleaned up and did their best to salvage what had to be admitted may have been a doomed project from the beginning. The walnuts were slightly burnt, as were the edges of the cookies, when Throndir pulled them out of the oven. The sweetness was slightly off, and Ephrim definitely sneezed a bit too much to be normal after eating one, but they dutifully plated the cookies and took them to the classroom where Rosana was teaching at the moment.

“Oh, to what do we owe this surprise?”

“It’s Sun Day!” Throndir said brightly, holding out the plate of cookies to her.

“Is it?” She peered outside the window, looking dubiously at the cloudy grey sky. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Ephrim thought we could do with some festivity, so we made some treats.”

“How...thoughtful.” She offered them both a tired but genuine smile as she took the offered plate. “Really, it’s appreciated.”

“Well, you know, we’ve gotta do something for a holiday, right?” Ephrim winked at her. 

“You’re certainly right. Now, to be rude but-”

“We can take the hint.” Ephrim smiled.

“See you around Rosana!”

\---

“Pff. Hey Ephrim.”

Ephrim tiredly turned over in bed to face Throndir, who looked far too alert for his own personal tastes. “Yes?”

“You’ve still got flour in your hair.”

“...I love you. Let’s leave the baking to Emmanuel though.”

“Agreed.”

**Author's Note:**

> as always, comments and constructive criticism is always welcome and i can be found [@frabjousgay](https://twitter.com/frabjousgay) on twitter or [Link text](https://theunacceptablepylades.tumblr.com) on tumblr


End file.
